Felix was already climbing out of bed. His back was to her, so she couldn’t read his expression when he answered, “You were just turned into a vampire, Dahlia. You need to be checked by someone I trust to make sure everything’s all right.”
He said it so casually, like she’d twisted her ankle instead of the world-shattering change she’d undergone. It was the same way he’d acted the previous night. Like it didn’t matter. Like it was nothing.
At the time she’d been too confused and overwhelmed to really register it. Now she was well-fed and rested. She had more than enough energy to be pissed off.
Sitting up, Dahlia snatched a sheet and wrapped it around her torso. “That’s it?” she snapped. “That’s all you have to say about it?”
Felix parted the drapes on his side of the bed and slipped away. She watched him go, a gradually enlarging ball of red-hot feeling burning in her chest.
He doesn’t care.
Of course he didn’t. Felix wasn’t capable of caring. She’d known that for years. What for a normal person would’ve been displays of affection and concern were merely the expression of instinct for him.
If he wanted to keep her safe, it was because he needed her to be healthy to feed on. If he asked her how she was, it was the strictly necessary maintenance to keep her connected to him.
It likely didn’t even occur to him that she might be upset or traumatized by what had happened to her. All he cared about was what it meant for him — which was almost certainly why the doctor had been called. He wanted to confirm that she was officially a waste of his time.
Why he showed up to her apartment when he did and why he’d bothered to take her home, she had no idea. In that moment, she wasn’t even sure it mattered.
Dahlia blinked back the sting of tears. She hated that she’d allowed herself to fall into his little game. There’d never been any hope of her winning. Even if he never got what he really wanted, she was always going to be the loser.
And I had sex with him last night. Gods, I’m an idiot.
The sudden drawing back of the drapes on her side of the bed made her jump. Felix stood there, his wide shoulders silhouetted by the golden light from the lamps, one arm outstretched toward her.
“Here,” he said, tossing her a bundle of red silk like it was a football.
Without looking at him, Dahlia snatched it from her lap. It was a decadent crimson robe. Refusing to ask where it came from or who it belonged to, she clenched her jaw and shrugged it on over the sheet. When all her bits were hidden from him, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
Remembering the path to the bathroom, she brushed past him without a word, intent on scrubbing the staleness from her mouth. The fact that her toiletries and make-up kit were waiting for her on the marble counter was a small relief.
She still looked like she’d been sick, but a little blush and some concealer went a long way. As did a quick styling of her hair. It wasn’t about looking good for him or anyone else. It was about having some control over the disaster that was her life.
By the time she emerged from the bathroom, Felix had disappeared and she was a little bit more composed.
Unfortunately, the rest of her things were missing. Her clothing, wallet, and phone were nowhere to be found in the luxurious bedroom. That left her in just the robe.
The sound of Felix’s voice drew her back into the sitting room. Keeping her gaze very firmly averted from the couch they’d soiled, she spied him standing by the door with another man.
Trying not to feel awkward in just her robe and nothing else, Dahlia crossed her arms and waited for them to notice her.
She’d barely completed the motion before Felix’s attention swung her way. Those gray eyes snapped toward her instantly, like he knew exactly where she’d be on instinct alone. Something in her throbbed at the sight of him — a deep, fundamental yearning that went beyond lust or hunger.
Dahlia was disturbed by the impulse that fluttered behind her ribs. It was a giddy urgency to be near him as quickly as possible, to run her hands all over him and check that he was well.
It made his lack of regard for her even more galling.
Digging her nails into her arms, she met his smile with a scowl. There was no damn way she would act like that. Not when he didn’t care enough to ask if she was all right.
Clapping a hand on the stranger’s shoulder, Felix gestured toward her. “Alvin, this is Dahlia. Dahlia, this is R. Alvin Turner III. We just call him Alvin. He’s the family’s doctor.”
Alvin gave her a small, close-lipped smile.
He was a tall man with sandy blond hair, sun-kissed skin, and a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. She could tell at a glance that he wasn’t a vampire, but something in his eyes made the hair stand up on the back of her neck none the less.
Nothing about him screamed of a threat. The man wore slacks, loafers, and a neat white button down. His hair was perfectly parted and his body language was easy. He looked like every rich man whose daddy bought him a sailboat for his birthday and never had to work a day of retail in his life.
But the very things that would’ve made her dismiss him on sight made him stand out starkly in Felix’s sitting room. Standing there in his preppy outfit, she got the distinctimpression that it was a costume meant to disguise the glitter of sharp intelligence in his eyes.
